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"Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive." - Sir Walter Scott

Fifteen years ago, in 1997, sports marketing company ISL transferred money to a FIFA bank account. There was nothing unusual about the practice. ISL had owned the marketing and TV rights to FIFA since the company was formed in 1982.

But this time someone at ISL made a horrific error. The money was not supposed to reach a FIFA bank account but rather it was to be routed to the private account of then FIFA President Joao Havelange.

João Havelange (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As investigative journalist Andrew Jennings described in the opening chapter of his 2006 book ("Foul! The Secret World of FIFA; Bribes Vote Rigging and Ticket Scandals), the misdirected wire transfer became a "ticking time-bomb."

The money was a bribe paid by ISL to Havelange in return for receiving exclusive rights to FIFA properties such as World Cup TV and marketing rights.

Although the bribe - and other similar allegations - has been widely reported by the likes of Jennings, contributors to PlaytheGame.org and Lasana Liburd over the years, the mainstream media have tended to only show intermittent interest.

So it was last week when prosecutor in the Swiss Canton of Zug issued a document that revealed that Havelange and his former son-in-law and former Brazil Football Association President Ricardo Teixeira had pocketed $40M from ISL in late 90s and in the early part of this century. (The report also stated that another $36M had been paid by ISL to influential figures within international sport but that is another story for another time.)

The report confirmed details made public by Jennings six years ago that the Chief Financial Officer of FIFA in 1997 knew about the misdirected funds but it falls just short of confirming outright that Sepp Blatter, now FIFA President but then General Secretary, was aware of the payment at the time.

FIFA and in particular President Blatter have gone to great lengths since the report was published last week to spin the story.

The official line is that (a) FIFA welcomed the report and that it had been made public and (b) paying and accepting bribes in itself was not a criminal offence in Switzerland at the time.

What they failed to come clean with was that FIFA had stonewalled the issue for a decade.

What's more if ISL had not succumbed to a spectacular bankruptcy in 2001 all of this might not have even attracted the Swiss prosecutor's interest. There is a certain perverted but delicious irony when it comes to ISL's role in this sordid mess.